While my PCP is not at MGH, I have several specialists that I see there far more frequently than I see my PCP. It;s always been easy to get in for things like Xrays and blood tests, and handy having all these docs in one place, in case one of them wants me to see someone else (for example, I have an appt with a surgeon coming up, and my other docs know him and work with him regularly).

I don't know if the world of PCPs would be different, but my experience has been fine.

This would be a great revamp to an otherwise desolate stretch of Cambridge Street which is embarrassing as the first thing one experiences after crossing the Longfellow. Another opportunity to rebuild part of the missing "there" in the post urban 'renewal' era West End.

They apparently propose to destroy the one historic building on that side of the street, the Resident Physician's House [ca. 1891] at the corner of Cambridge and North Grove Streets. The hospital actually received money from historic preservation groups to preserve that building in 1982. They did so by moving it from its previous location on Blossom Street.

An adjacent, modern building that is quite handsome -- the MGH Professional Office Building, built of brick in a style intended to complement the Resident Physician's House -- would also apparently be taken down.

Neither of those buildings appear in the renderings of the proposed new facilities. But they provide a needed transition between the high-rise buildings of MGH and the Beacon Hill residential area.

Agreed that a lot of Cambridge Street is pretty desolate and grim looking. But they shouldn't take down the two buildings that do look nice. There's a lot of other buildings that should be taken instead.

Pretty much in their entirety with the very real trade off that it reduces the amount of dense housing we can build near the city core. And I'm fine with that! But I think that negates the need to preserve a brick building or two in the West End. There's nothing specifically historically significant about those structures vs. having a city built for today and the future.

And the North End, that didn't fit in the title block. Four very cool historic neighborhoods preserved in amber ringing the city core - the West End is gone, let's remember it and move on. Facade preservation is just pointless architectural cosplay.